Yeringberg – Yarra Valley

Founded by Baron Frederic Guillame de Pury in the 1860’s, Yeringberg is one of the Yarra’s first and finest wine estates. The Baron’s grandson Guill de Pury and his great-granddaughter Sandra are the current winemakers and their deep connection with the land is palpable. Rightly famed for their white Rhône varietals (no longer known as ‘White Hermitage’), specific sites in their tiny estate yield excellent results with other varieties all brought to fruition in their nation trust protected heritage winery built in 1880. After the region’s near 50 year wine hiatus, Guill started replanting vines in 1969, making the first of the new generation of Yeringberg wines in 1974. “Yarra Valley pioneers, the de Pury family are renowned for wines of finesse and elegance that epitomise the finest the region can produce. Produced from some of the oldest vines in the valley, these are long-lived wines made in tiny quantities. Yeringberg makes wines from the low-yielding vines re-established in the heart of what was one of the most famous vineyards of the nineteenth century. In the riper years, the red wines have a velvety generosity of flavour which is rarely encountered, yet never lose varietal character, while the Yeringberg White takes students of history back to Yeringberg’s fame in the nineteenth century.” – James Halliday.

Their Viognier is mouth-filling and gently unctuous, cool, dry and refreshing. The Chardonnay spends 10 months in barrel (30% new, this portion undergoing malo), with fortnightly batonnage for the first three months. The Marsanne Roussanne is 60% Marsanne & 40% Roussanne which starts ferment in Stainless Steel following a short maceration before completing fermentation in used wood. The Yeringberg Shiraz contains 3% Viognier and is deep, cool and savoury. Sandra describes the Pinot Noir, from old vines, as “both pretty and powerful, delicate and muscular”. The flagship wine from the estate also carries the name Yeringberg – a seamless Bordeaux influenced blend of Cabernet Sauvignon 66%, Cabernet Franc 13%, Merlot 8%, Petit Verdot 8% & Malbec 5%.